


Break

by SecretSingerOfAll



Series: Moments (In Between) [1]
Category: Nightwing (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Attempted Suicide, Depression, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 01:25:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18063929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretSingerOfAll/pseuds/SecretSingerOfAll
Summary: He said he needed a break, from teams.But he cuts himself off from everyone.





	Break

**Author's Note:**

> Watch Outsiders. Got back in the fandom. Had Emotions.
> 
> I’m not sorry.
> 
> But, hey. Two fics in two days! Wow!

A little time to himself. That’s what he’d said. He needs it. There’s big problems, but he just… he can’t take them on. It’s too  _ much _ .

 

Bludhaven is simple. Disgusting people everywhere. Not even a veneer of wealth and opulence in some places, like Gotham had.

 

It’s disgusting, but it’s simple.

 

And it’s a lot of work, but that means it’s easier not to return calls.

 

(A long time ago he said that he never wanted to be Batman. Not so long ago, he’d become exactly that. Perhaps not in costume, perhaps not in name, but in soul.

 

And now Wally’s dead. They hadn’t even fully won.)

 

He does have work to do, to take down Blockbuster, who’s somehow come back.

 

Apparently, whatever had happened had given the man his sentience back, and now he was out for Dick’s blood.

  
  
  


Bruce tries to talk to him when the accused members of the League return home. Dick doesn’t listen. He doesn’t care.

 

Bruce—no,  _ Batman _ calls his plan reckless. It was anything but. It had worked, it had been planned and thought out and  _ exactly  _ like something Bruce would do.

 

But even that wasn’t enough.

 

There was a time that Dick had trusted and believed in Bruce more than anything. That time is long past.

 

But it still hurts that Bruce could once again be  _ so hypocritical _ .

 

(He doesn’t go back to Gotham again.)

  
  
  


“My name is Tarantula,” the woman says, “and I want to work with you.”

 

Dick crosses his arms.

 

“I don’t work with others, not anymore,” he says. “Certainly not with killers.”

 

“Then I’ll keep killing without you involvement,” she says in reply. “I hear we have a mutual enemy, however…”

 

“No.”

 

Dick says no. She keeps following him.

 

(Maybe he ignored the warning signs.)

 

She follows him through every pain Blockbuster puts him through, even if she doesn’t realize who he is until his apartment blows.

 

Dick doesn’t know what to do, but she doesn’t kill when he’s there, even if he knows that she still does,

 

(Her name is Catalina Flores.)

 

She’s the only ally he has when they face Blockbuster, and it works…

 

Until she cocks the gun.

  
  
  


Dick can’t bring himself to return to Gotham, not with Blockbuster hanging over his head and his family’s anger still holding him down like a weight.

 

Not even when the Joker…

 

It had been three months since the Endgame when it happened.

 

The Joker shot Babs. She was in the hospital. Nobody told him for two weeks, anyways. Until Artemis called. Over and over until he answered.

 

“She’s one of your best friends,” she says. “And she needs you.”

 

(It sounds like she’s said it before.)

 

But he couldn’t return. He’d only put her in more danger.

 

(Just another failure on his ever growing list. They’re all better off without him.)

  
  
  


Dick looks at the blood on his hands. He looks at Blockbuster’s dead body,

 

He can’t  _ breath _ .

 

He’s panicking, he  _ knows _ that, but all he can think to do is stumble up onto the rooftop, gasping and shaking, already weak because he hasn’t eaten or slept properly in months.

 

Blockbuster had said the pain was never gonna stop.

 

He collapses to the ground, on the roof, apologizing to phantoms, and he thinks there’s tears miked with the rain on his face as his blood covered hands are rinsed clean.

 

And he just… sits there, for what feels like forever, until the rains stops but the clouds stay and he looks up and there’s Tarantula.

 

“I failed you,” he whispers. Tarantula is silent. “I… killed him, we  _ killed _ …”

 

She pushes him down. He tells her not to touch him.

 

She…

  
  
  


Dick notices, at some point, that he’s getting more hurt than he used to. Part of it is that he’s tired. Constantly. Endlessly.

 

No break or backup.

 

He doesn’t want it.

 

He just wants to be alone until…

 

Until what? Until it hurts less? It never hurts less. Just more. More and more and more.

 

Perhaps this is just the life of a superhero.

 

He’d said he needed a break. But then he’d realized that that break was from everyone. He can’t be a disappointment and a failure if he’s not there.

 

Except that there’s still Blockbuster and Catalina, and he’s  _ failed _ once again.

 

He’s getting hurt more. He doesn’t care.

 

(Eventually it’s not just enemies.)

 

It’s less than he deserves, and he still wins with no lives lost.

 

(Except for once. That horrible night. Never gonna stop…)

 

Eventually, he stops trying too hard to even make it out of fights at all. Eventually, he succeeds at his final failure.

 

Or, he would have.

  
  
  


Dick would say that he’s surprised it’s Artemis who pulls him back up, but he’s somehow not. So he lets Artemis lead him to the nearest zeta tube and to…

 

He doesn’t know where. Some minor base. Nothing like any of his homes.

 

(He’d blown up Mount Justice. Why had he done that? For the mission. The  _ fucking _ mission.)

 

“Where…” he mumbles, not even bothering to fight as she strips him out of his suit. It’s full of holes and tears from months of bad care, and that should matter more than it does.

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Artemis says. “You look like shit, Dick.”

 

Dick laughs. It’s not his old laugh; there’s no joy in his voice, anymore.

 

You shouldn’t be able to laugh at all when your friend is digging bullets out of your body, but Dick is certainly no type of ordinary.

 

“I am, Arty,” he says, when she finishes wrapping up his top half. There’s nothing too serious on his legs tonight, at least. He curls in on himself without thought. “I’m… I’m poison.”

 

“Dick…”

 

“All I do is hurt people,” he says. “Mess up.”

 

It’s been three months since Blockbuster was killed. Six since Wally died. Artemis must still be grieving plenty in her own right, and he hadn’t been there for her at all, so why is she here for him?

 

He doesn’t need it.

 

(He doesn’t deserve it.)

 

“No you don’t,” Artemis says. “But I know better than to try and convince you. Just know that I don’t blame you for anything, and I’m here if you need me.”

 

Dick sighs.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“I know.”

  
  
  


Catalina leaves Bludhaven a month after they kill Blockbuster, when Dick gets his head on straight enough to threaten to turn them both in. Without anything left, Dick puts himself into crime fighting mostly because it’s one of the only things he knows.

 

All his backup suits and most of his supplies had been destroyed with his old apartment, and he doesn’t want to go back to being cop, but he works odd jobs, and he gets scrappy.

 

He should probably eat more, but that money’s needed for trying to do good.

 

(Is any of it really good, though? Is he?)

  
  
  


Dick takes another month after Artemis saves him to actually go visit her.

 

It’s the first time in a while that he’s made a choice as himself and not Nightwing, he realizes.

 

“Dick?” Artemis asks in surprise. Dick just smiles.

 

“I can come back later, if you want,” he says. “And I… finally got a new phone.”

 

Artemis just shakes her head, opening the door wider.

 

“No, come in,” she says. “I just wasn’t expecting you.”

 

Dick smiles a little brighter, walking past her.

 

“Thanks,” he says. “I… I need to talk to someone.”

  
  
  


Dick still doesn’t want to be part of a team again, especially not as leader, but he supposes that not wanting to die is a good first step.

 

Rebuilding bridges is a good second.

 

And leaving Bludhaven, for a time, becomes a good third.

 

There are things that he doesn’t want to deal with, not yet, but…

 

He has friends again.

 

And family.

 

And maybe, just maybe, he won’t mess it up again.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m also on Tumblr at @secretsingerofall


End file.
